Readers Guide: Mark Greaney's ‘Support and Defend’ at Library

If you attended the Friends of Oak Ridge National Lab Dick Smyser Community lecture in July 2013, you heard former Oak Ridger Mike Tabor talk about his experiences as a forensic dentist.

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By Susie Stooksbury/Special to The Oak Ridger

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By Susie Stooksbury/Special to The Oak Ridger

Posted Aug. 13, 2014 at 1:00 AM

By Susie Stooksbury/Special to The Oak Ridger

Posted Aug. 13, 2014 at 1:00 AM

If you attended the Friends of Oak Ridge National Lab Dick Smyser Community lecture in July 2013, you heard former Oak Ridger Mike Tabor talk about his experiences as a forensic dentist. Dr. Tabor has now published a mystery featuring a couple of meth addicts who go on a crime spree, leaving an unidentified body in their wake. Dr. Chris Walsh, Chief Forensic Odontologist of the Tennessee Medical Examiner's office, sets out to put a name to the victim and find the killers in “Walk of Death” (M).

According to fans and critics, the late Tom Clancy would be pleased with Mark Greaney's handling of his Jack Ryan franchise. “Support and Defend” features President Ryan's nephew Dominic Caruso, who heads the ultra-secret arm of the government known as The Campus. Despite a series of personal tragedies, Dominic begins a race against time to find Ethan Ross, a former midlevel employee of the National Security Council who has disappeared, taking with him a flash drive full of top secret information.

The Army's 1st Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One, were battle seasoned veterans by the spring of 1944 hoping to go home, but by June it was clear they had another job to do. They were among the first wave of troops to go ashore in the invasion of Normandy and their valor that day made victory possible for the Allies. Historian John C. McManus highlights these brave men in “The Dead and Those About to Die: D-Day: the Big Red One at Omaha Beach” (940.542).

Frankie Rowley returns home after spending 15 years as an aid worker in Africa to find her father slipping into dementia and her harried mother thrown reluctantly into the role as caregiver. The elder Rowleys have moved permanently to their summer home in little Pomeroy, New Hampshire, and during Frankie's first night there one of the neighboring summer homes burns to the ground. When another summer house burns down several nights later, the local newspaper editor, who is a new resident, suspects arson — and touches off resentment between the permanent residents and the summer people. Sue Miller's latest multi-layered novel is “The Arsonist.”

Whether you have visited Versailles or know of it only through books and film, you have never seen it like this. Yves Carlier, head curator of the Documentary Resources Department, and photographer Frances Hammond invite you to spend “A Day at Versailles” (944.366). They take you into closed off areas few tourists see and into the vibrant history of this extraordinary place.

Frequently when someone is murdered the police suspect the spouse. In the case of Oliver Lane, who was shot to death at the family's summer rental on the Outer Banks, his beautiful wife, Diana, becomes the top suspect— until Lane's second wife, Jewels, is discovered, followed closely by the discovery of Lane's third wife, Roberta. Watching the case unfold and knowing far more than she lets on is the story's narrator, Picasso, Oliver and Diana's precocious 12-year-old daughter. The intriguing “I Love You More” marks the fiction debut of Jennifer Murphy.